“He’s played in the NHL, he’s bringing experience, he’s a guy that can play on the penalty kill, he’s safe and he’s steady,” Holland said. “He’s not going to bring you out of your seat, but he’s gritty and he’s got experience. He can make the pass to get the puck in the hands of the forwards.”

Huskins, whose deal is a one-year, one-way contract worth $750,000, played in Norfolk in the AHL over the weekend on a tryout and was scouted by Wings’ pro scout Glenn Merkosky.

“We’re in Game 3 and it looks to me we’re into our ninth or 10th defenseman,” Holland said. “We need depth on defense because we really only got young kids in Grand Rapids.”

Huskins is scheduled to land in Detroit at 2:30 p.m. and his contract is being worked on being cleared with the NHL.

Ericsson is day-to-day and is scheduled to have an MRI on his hip Monday.

The Wings thought about playing Kindl tonight, but decided against it. He’ll be ready for Friday.

Samuelsson, who played the entire game on Monday, re-injured the same groin he hurt in camp.

“It’s frustrating,” Samuelsson said. “You come here, you want to obviously perform, but I’m used to it. I’ve been injured before. You’ve got to stay patient, especially with a groin. Work on it and come back stronger.”

Samuelsson didn’t know when he’d be back on the ice skating. The Wings won’t practice again till Thursday.

“I expect him to be really good,” Wings coach Mike Babcock said of Nyquist. “He’s thinks he’s an NHL player, we think he’s a top-two line NHL player, but we just haven’t had room for him here. We’re just trying to sort out our forwards. I think he’s going to play here in the not too distant future.”

He’ll skate on a line with Johan Franzen and Valtteri Filppula. He’ll also see power play time.

“It’s no different than (Brian) Lashoff. He was out playing with (Niklas) Kronwall and he was out killing a penalty when we were down 4-on-3 and was the only D man on the ice.”

Lashoff also scored in his NHL debut Monday.

“He was simple. He was easy. It was easy to coach him and watch him,” Babcock said of Lashoff. “He just made simple plays and didn’t get himself in any trouble. I had a chance to scout when I was off, you go watch a game and (scout) a prospect and he generates offense for your team and then he generates offense for the other team, so you don’t know what he’s going to do. I’m not interested in watching that. I want to know what you’re going to (do). If a guy’s consistent and you know what he’s going to do, you know how to use him, how to coach him and how to help him. When they’re erratic, I don’t even know what to do with that.”

Both Helm and Bertuzzi hope to be ready for Friday’s home game against the Minnesota Wild.

“I was excited to hear the news,” Bertuzzi said when he learned he didn’t have mono. “The last thing I want to do is spend a month in bed waiting to come back knowing that it would take two weeks to get going again. A month and a half pretty much lost, so I was happy with the news and trying to get back as soon as I can now.”

Goalie Jonas Gustavsson is also out with a tender groin.

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